For millennia, the Jewish experience has been that of a tiny nation facing challenging threats. Unfortunately, throughout history, Jews have also displayed a remarkable inability at identifying those threats in time.

After the German right-wing party, Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) gained seats in the recent Bundestag elections, Ron Lauder, President of World Jewish Congress, said, “It is abhorrent that the AfD party, a disgraceful reactionary movement which recalls the worst of Germany’s past and should be outlawed, now has the ability within the German parliament to promote its vile platform.” German Jewish leaders expressed similar sentiments.

Diaspora Jewish leaders, once again, appear to be misreading Europe’s political map, failing to register the changing winds of anti-Semitism.

AfD challenges the overwhelmingly liberal and pro-immigration European political elites. However, unlike actual Nazis, the AfD leadership appears to be very positive towards Israel according to a poll conducted by a group promoting relations between Germany and Israel. The results show that nearly 90 % of the 35 AfD politicians surveyed, support or somewhat support Angela Merkel’s dictum that “Israel’s security is Germany’s raison d’etre.” 88 % believed that Israel’s upcoming 70th birthday anniversary was a reason for Germany to celebrate. 86 % of the surveyed AfD candidates support German export of arms to Israel.

The AfD may not be Diaspora Jewry’s cup of tea. However, its focus is not on European Jews, but on the negative consequences accompanying mass Muslim immigration to Europe, particularly the dramatic rise in Islamist terrorism and Muslim extremism. The Dutch politician Geert Wilders, who is pro-Israel and opposes Islamist supremacy, has been equally demonized as “racist” by Europe’s political establishment.

Equating opposition to Islamist terror with “Nazism”, whitewashes history and belittles the crimes of Nazi Germany. Hitler viciously attacked peaceful and well-integrated Jewish citizens, who constituted no threat to German society. By contrast, millions of European Muslims refuse to integrate, spread Jew-hatred and seek to impose Islamist ideologies on their Western host societies. Western liberals cling to 20th century images of anti-Semites with Hitler moustaches and lederhosen, but the Jew-haters of the early 21st century wear PLO keffiyehs and demand the destruction of the Jewish state in the name of “anti-racism”.

Right-wing anti-Semitism has been discredited and relegated to the extreme fringes of the West. By contrast, the international Left and its Islamist allies are increasingly pushing their anti-Zionist Jew-hatred into the main bloodstream of European societies under the guise of “anti-racism”. This Leftist-Islamist alliance constitutes the real threat against Israel and the Jewish people. Middle Eastern countries have skillfully exploited the West’s post-colonial guilt by pushing for an Orwellian agenda where genocidal Islamist racists who oppress women and hang gays – and their leftist co-travelers – lecture Israel and the West on ‘human rights’ and ‘apartheid”.

Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel is often described as Israel’s friend. However, Germany is the largest international financer of extremist NGOs that rarely miss an opportunity to demonize and slander Israel. Germany’s Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel, who demonized AfD as “Nazis”, had no scruples about meeting with Iran’s leaders, who openly call for the destruction of Israel. Earlier this year, Gabriel absurdly hosted Hamidreza Torabi, head of the Iranian- supported Islamic Academy of Germany, which rejects Israel’s right to exist, at an event promoting “religious peace”.

Efraim Zuroff, the Wiesenthal Center’s chief Nazi-hunter, has criticized Germany for its duplicitous role in embracing current Islamist Jew-hatred while claiming to support Israel’s security: “It is the height of hypocrisy to present a [German] foreign policy that views the security of Israel as a fundamental principle, and then invite people who promote the destruction of Israel.”

In 2015, the late professor Robert Wistrich, a prominent Israeli expert on Jew-hatred, summarized the zeitgeist of contemporary anti-Semitism, when he wrote, “…today’s anti-Semitism is a product of a new civic religion that could be termed ‘Palestinianism’”. The pro-Pallywood industry is not driven by the urge to promote human rights for Arabs but by the desire to deny Jews basic human rights, such as the universal right to national self-determination. The term ‘anti-Semitism’ was coined in the late 19th century to rebrand and make ancient Jew-hatred sound academic and thereby more ‘respectable’. Today, the term ‘anti-Zionism’ is used to legitimize Jew-hatred in the 21st century among people who officially claim to oppose racism.

Sadly, too many Diaspora Jewish leaders are fighting yesterday’s demons while ignoring the actual threats of today. Even worse, some self-appointed Jewish liberals are actively supporting the same Judeo-phobic Muslim mass immigration that undermines a Jewish future in Europe. Hitler’s goal of a Jew-free Europe is gradually becoming a reality, not because of fringe Neo-Nazi movements but because of the Leftist-Islamist alliance that promotes Jew-hatred in the name of “human rights”.

Unlike “progressive” cosmopolitan Jews, Israel is frequently demonized as a collective “bad Jew” for defending Jewish national freedom. In reality, the Jewish state is following in the footsteps of the great Jewish leader Hillel: “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, who am I? If not now, when?” Israel generously helps people around the world from Mexico and Texas to Nepal and Japan. However, Israel was also reestablished with a clear purpose: securing a vibrant home for the Jewish people in its ancestral homeland.